Trump says he’ll watch ‘a little’ of Mueller

NEW YORK — He won’t watch. Well, maybe just a little bit.

President Donald Trump on Monday feigned indifference to Robert Mueller’s upcoming congressional testimony, an eyebrowraising claim for a media-obsessed president who has been concerned for months about the potential impact of the former special counsel’s appearance.

Much of Washington will stop in its tracks Wednesday as Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill for at least five hours, a nationally televised event that for many Americans will be their first detailed exposure to the former special counsel’s findings on Russia’s 2016 election interference.

“No, I’m not going to be watching — probably — maybe I’ll see a little bit of it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I’m not going to be watching Mueller because you can’t take all those bites out of the apple.”

That was a shift from Friday, when Trump insisted he would not watch any of Mueller’s back-to-back appearances before two House committees.

Either way, the president has continued to wage war on the former special counsel’s credibility, sending out a series of tweets Monday in which he deemed Mueller, without evidence, “highly conflicted” and said that “in the end it will be bad for him and the phony Democrats in Congress who have done nothing but waste time on this ridiculous Witch Hunt.”

Though the probe did not establish charges of criminal conspiracy or obstruction, there has been growing concern among those close to the president that Mueller’s appearance could push undecided or reluctant Democrats toward impeachment.